


Like the Way It's Going

by Wjpoindexters



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Also staring the sister I force Kent to have every single fic I write, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Getting Together, If childhood friends reconnecting is your thing you gotta, Las Vegas Aces, M/M, basically Kent and Jeff were childhood friends who stopped talking and see each other again, losing touch with friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wjpoindexters/pseuds/Wjpoindexters
Summary: Kent Parson spent the ages of 18 through 24 pining over a boy who didn’t love him anymore (maybe ever) and then spent all of 25 and the first month of 26 thinking about the first “real” crush he ever had. eff Troy had been a year older than him and a year younger than his sister Naomi. But Naomi had repeated Kindergarten and she and Jeff had ended up in the same class. Then he ended up at every single one of Naomi’s birthday parties and sleepovers, and then he ended up at their house after school every single day until he and Naomi were inseparable. Then he and Kent were inseparable.





	Like the Way It's Going

**Author's Note:**

> The alternate title to this was "Kent Parson is a hot mess, someone help him."  
> This was my first reverse bang and I had so much fun doing it! I hope you all like reading it as much as I liked writing it!  
> And thank you to the amazing Pwoops, whose art gave me so much inspiration to write this!

“So I’ll be out in Vegas next week, are you busy?” Kent blinks the sleep from his eyes and holds his phone away from his ear. His vision hasn’t completely focused and the numbers are a little blurry but it says 6am at the top. 

“Naomi.” 

“Yes?” 

“Why are you calling me this early?” 

Kent can hear a little huff from the other side of the phone, “it’s not that early. It’s already 6am where you are.” 

Kent groans and turns over, letting his face smush into his pillow, “oh good so you didn’t just forget about the time difference and you’re actually just a fucking asshole. Good to know.” 

“That’s no way to talk to your favorite sister.” She practically sings it and Kent can feel himself become more and more awake by the second and he hates it. 

“Nai, you’re my only sister. I don’t have a lot of other options.” 

“Well that’s good because I’m probably going to be annoying the shit out of you for the next month or two. I can stay with you, that’s fine right?” 

Kent sets his phone down next to his pillow. He lifts his head up, pulling the pillow out from underneath him and then smashes it into his face and yells as loudly as he can without Naomi actually being able to hear him. He throws the pillow to the other side of the bed and picks his phone back up. 

“Yeah Nai, you can always stay with me.” 

“You were screaming into your pillow. I heard you,” Kent can’t tell if she’s laughing or scoffing, “look, I wouldn’t normally spring this up on you with such short notice but I’m helping a friend move out there and you know how much I hate living out of hotels for more than a few days, and they already offered to let me stay at their place but I don’t want them to feel bad for not having anything there and feeling like a bad host so I thought staying with you was the better option. Pleeeeeaaase?” 

“You’re always welcome here Nai, I’m just tired and grumpy. Hey, why don’t we solve another problem. Tell your friend they can stay here too. It sucks living on an air mattress for god knows how long.” 

“You seriously wouldn’t mind?” 

“What’s the use of having three different guest bedrooms if I don’t let my sister and all of her friends use them to live up the Vegas dream once in a while?” 

“Ha! Vegas dream? Your house is sad and boring and full of cat hair. Who’s Vegas dream is that?” 

“It’s my Vegas dream! Don’t be ungrateful!” 

Naomi is still laughing quietly when she responds, “I am. Super grateful. You have to start letting me do more for you Kent. I kind of feel like I drop the ball on being the older sibling like… all the time.” 

“Nah I’m like super rich. It would be sort of a dick move if I didn’t pay for everything, right?” 

“Totally a dick move. You would literally win the worst brother of the year award. I would nominate you.” 

“In a heartbeat, I know.” Kent sits up and throws his legs over the side of his bed, “just send me your flight information and I’ll pick you guys up at the airport.” 

“Awwe, curb side service too! You’re really pulling out all the stops.” 

“Yeah well I can’t look like a jerk in front of my sister’s friend, right?” Kent stands up and walks over to his window, pulling the black out curtains over to look at the sky. The Civil Twilight is stretching out across the Las Vegas city skyline. The sunrise approaching fast. Kent hates getting up around this time, it makes him melancholy, “what friend is moving to Vegas anyways?” 

There’s a beat of silence on the other end of the phone and for a second Kent thinks he’s accidentally hung up so he draws his phone back but the timer is still going. Naomi finally speaks, “You remember Jeff right? Jeff Troy?” 

Kent grabs the edge of the black out curtains and tugs them with more force than necessary so they’re tightly closed, without a single ray of gray light entering his room, and then he throws himself back into bed. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

When Kent was 18 he thought that Jack Zimmermann was always going to be the one who got away. He spent the ages of 18 through 24 pining over a boy who didn’t love him anymore (maybe ever) and then spent all of 25 and the first month of 26 thinking about the first “real” crush he ever had. He’d had crushes before, in first grade Mia Thomas gave him the cookies from her lunch every day and Kent had told his mom that he was going to marry her someday (although now he knows it was just for the cookies), when he was in second grade he was always caught up by how green Tyler Monroe’s eyes were, in third grade it was Lukas Meyers’ hair, the list went on and on and on. Kent caught feelings easily. 

Throughout all of the month by month, year by year crushes though there was one that stayed from the beginning of when Kent knew what a crush was until his present day mess of a life at 26. Jeff Troy had been a year older than him and a year younger than his sister Naomi. But Naomi had repeated Kindergarten and she and Jeff had ended up in the same class. Then he ended up at every single one of Naomi’s birthday parties and sleepovers, and then he ended up at their house after school every single day until he and Naomi were inseparable. Then he and Naomi and Kent were inseparable. 

And listen, Kent didn’t have a lot that he looked back on in his childhood and thought ‘those were the best years of my life’ but every single one of them had Jeff in it. There used to be these woods behind Kent and Naomi’s house and the three of them would get lost back there for hours making forts and lean-tos out of brush and branches. And when they were older they would hang out in the basement of Kent and Naomi’s house. And then Kent got serious about hockey, and then he got even more serious and 16 rolled around. Jeff and Kent’s entire relationship went from whispering secrets in the dark to texts and Kent being home sporadically. Then it went to mostly texts and Kent being in Montreal all summer to… well Kent hadn’t actually talked to Jeff in a year. Not unless you count liking each other’s Instagram photos and retweeting each other’s tweets. 

Kent groaned and threw the blanket currently covering his face over his head so he could look at his phone again. It was already past 8am. He’d been laying there commiserating about Jeff fucking Troy and his sad “nobody loves me boo hoo” teenage crush for two hours. Great. 

Kent stares up at the ceiling of his room, the ceiling fan is oscillating slowly and he tracks the motion with his eyes. It goes around once, twice, three times before he gets up for the day even when all he wants to do is sleep and maybe have Kit come cuddle on his bed with him for the next 24 hours. Except he was a grown adult with grown adult responsibilities, the first one being that he’d be late for the ice time he and Brownie had rented out if he wasn’t out of bed in the next ten minutes. 

Kent finally pulls himself out of bed and gets into the shower. Scraps had said a $400 shower head was ridiculous and Kent should be ashamed of himself, but right now Kent is enjoying the the rain and waterfall shower head work its magic on his mood and overall outlook in life. When he’s done he towel dries quickly, dresses even quicker and is out in the kitchen putting food in Kit’s bowl before grabbing his phone keys out of the glass bowl sitting on his console table and he’s off to the arena with no extra time wasted. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

“I don’t get it? You guys are like best friends but you’re like terrified of him being in Las Vegas?” Brownie is stretching on the ice next to him before they start their laps around the ice. 

“We aren’t best friends. We used to be best friends.” 

“Well how hard can it be to reconnect if you used to be as tight as you were just telling me?” 

Kent pauses his stretches and looks down at the ice for a while before sighing, “we had a fight before we like… stopped talking all the time. It wasn’t really a big one or anything. Just a… one of those stupid “you’ve changed” fights. Like that’s fucking stupid right? Everyone changes when they get older? How do you not change?” 

“I don’t know man, I never knew little Kenny Parson so I have no idea how much you’ve changed. Were you like a super sweet kid? Were you the best friend who like remembered like everything they said they liked throughout the year so you could get them the perfect birthday present when it rolled around? Because if you were, I agree. Because you never remember the massive hints I drop you about my birthday presents all the time.” 

Kent shoots out an elbow and shoves Brownie on his ass down to the ice, “I get you perfect presents all the time, what are you talking about?” 

“You got me a lemon zester and an electric can opener for Valentine’s day last year Kent.” 

“Yeah, because you were complaining about how you couldn’t zest your lemons for your French 75’s with a knife! And you can’t work a normal can opener ever. They were thoughtful gifts!” 

“Practical is stupid Kent! I don’t want things that could actually help me! I want 24 layer chocolate cake from the Strip House!” 

“24 layer chocolate cake from the Strip House is not even remotely close to something we should be eating during the season.” 

“You can’t eat the 24 layer cake because you’re a glutton and would eat five pieces in one sitting. I on the other hand have a modicum of self control and would be able to ration that shit over like 2 or 3 days.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Kent takes a few long strides, Brownie skating right behind him. 

Brownie falls into him gently, “hey if you ever want to talk about this, you know I’m up for it, right?” Brownie gives him the Look™. 

The Look™ is Brownie’s way of asking Kent silently and in a room full of people if they need to go somewhere just the two of them so Kent can have a BGM, or “Big Gay Moment” as he and Brownie have started calling them. Kent’s sexuality isn’t a secret on the Aces or in the NHL or even in the public eye and thus far hasn’t been an issue before (other than that time Carl asked (yelled, in front of everyone actually) if Kent wanted to go to the Thunder from Down Under show instead of Vegas! at Planet Hollywood) but Brownie was still the only one that Kent felt comfortable talking to on the team. 

“You don’t have to give me the Look™ when we’re the only two people in the entire rink.” Kent rolls his eyes playfully. 

“Yeah well you never know who’s listening dude! I swear to god Carl has some kind of like sixth sense for when we’re talking about shit we definitely don’t want Carl to hear.” 

Kent scoffs. That’s the fucking truth. He pops up everywhere they don’t want him. Which is actually everywhere, “I may have… downplayed my big huge crush on the guy.” 

Brownie stops skating and looks at Kent, “uhh yeah you definitely downplayed that. So what you don’t want him to come to Vegas because you’re afraid that you’re going to go fall into old sad, please love me, ways?” 

Kent stops skating too and falls back into line with Brownie, “are you serious?” 

Brownie smiles at him, and it’s the smile that he gives Kent all the time when he thinks Kent is about to make bad life choices, “you have to admit that you have a terrible track record with relationships dude.” 

“I do not!” 

“You totally do. Remember that dude Abe last year?” 

“What about him?” 

“He was like super sweet and totally okay with the hockey schedule thing and do you remember why you broke up with him?” 

Kent starts skating away again, “nope.” 

Brownie follows him, “He ordered his steak well done when you all went out to dinner.” 

“Who does that?!” 

“People who don’t like their steak pink!” 

“It’s not right. Besides we weren’t serious.” 

“Okay what about the guy you had a few dates with earlier this year? He was super smart and yet somehow he thought you were also super smart.” Brownie tries to stop himself from laughing. 

“I am super smart.” 

“Okay and why did you stop going out with him after four dates?” 

“He said he hated the Lord of the Rings but that the Hobbit movies were wonderful.” 

“Kent…” 

“Well he’s wrong!” 

“Kent, I could literally go on. There are five more guys you stopped going on dates with for reasons that seemed completely insane. Like the one guy who didn’t like wearing sneakers.” 

“What else is he going to run in?” 

“My point,” Brownie interrupts him, “is that I can never figure out if you’re breaking up with them because they aren’t ‘the one’ and you can just tell right away or if you’re still hung up on you know who-” 

Kent scoffs, “He’s not voldemort, you can say his name. Also if you say it’s because I think Jeff is the one I’m going to take my skate blade off and pull a Tuukka Rask.” 

“BUT,” Brownie yells over Kent, “I think you just stop dates with people before they can start getting serious because you assume it’s going to end up like it did the last two times.” 

“Nothing bad happened with J-” 

Brownie puts a hand up, “I don’t know if you’re about to say Jeff or you know who but you have literally told me how sad both of them make you, so.” 

Kent looks down at the ice and scratches lines into it with his skate, “yeah well I’m not scared or sad or whatever and you’re not my therapist.” 

Brownie smiles wide at him, “nope, I am not. Which you are lucky for because I would be horrible at it. But I am your friend, and I do want you to be happy, so. Anytime you need to talk to me kiddo I’m here for you.” Brownie reaches out a gloved hand and ruffles Kent’s hair.

Kent reaches up and swats his hand away, “you’re only three years older than me dude!” Brownie starts laughing but Kent can’t see his face because he’s already zooming away from him, turning a curve. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Days pass, Kent wakes up and stares at the ceiling fan like he has the last couple of days, gets up, showers, feeds Kit, and goes for a run or a skate with Brownie. This part of summer is always the worst. Waiting for preseason skating and practice with the team, but not enough time to go on an actual restful vacation. 

Today’s routine is a little different though because he’s getting up earlier then he normally does. He glances at his alarm clock, he has to be at the airport in about an hour to pick up Naomi and Jeff. Kent stomps his way over to his shower. He’s changed? What does that even mean he’s changed? Kent would say he can’t believe he’s still mad about this years after the fact, but it’s him and he’s physically incapable of letting things go, so. 

The more relaxing the shower gets though, the more heated he feels himself becoming. Kent’s going to show him who’s changed. He’s going to walk in there looking like a million bucks, he’s going to be charming as hell! Jeff is going to be so thankful he’s changed because he’s super fun and nice and he’s letting him stay at his house free of charge because that’s what friends do!

Kent throws the door to his walk in closet open and grabs the pair of jeans that Brownie always says his ass looks amazing in. He throws them on the padded chair in his closet and then goes back to look for a shirt. He finally settles on the plain black button up that might be slightly too small for him. He throws that on the chair too. He’s got to go make his hair look perfect first. 

When he comes back to his closet forty minutes later, Kit is lounging on both his black button up and his fancy pair of jeans. Kit, his darling and absolute perfect princess of a white cat. Who has now gotten white hair all over his black button up and fancy ass jeans.Kent would stomp his foot, but he doesn’t think he’s quite reached that point of desperation yet. Besides he keeps an extra tape roller in his car so he’ll just do that while he’s waiting for Nai and Jeff to land. 

He spends another ten minutes perseverating over what watch to wear and in the end goes with the Bulgari watch that the team bought him when he made captain. He grabs his keys, sprints to his SUV, and is pulling out of his driveway ten minutes later than he had meant to. He figures when they land they’ll need time to actually grab their shit anyways so he should be good. 

The first red light he hits, he pops open his glove compartment, eyes shifting to the stoplight every couple of seconds to make sure he doesn’t miss it turning green, and rummages around to find the lint roller to get the white cat hair off of his black shirt. He can’t manage it to find it during the first red light, so during the second he pulls all of his shit out of his glove compartment, and during the third he leans all the way over to look for it. It’s not there. Great. He’ll just look like some crazy cat person who doesn’t care about hair getting everywhere, it’s fine. 

When he pulls up to the passenger pick up area he waffles a bit on whether he should park and go in and wait for them and help with their luggage. Their flight details say that he still has five minutes before they land so he should have enough time, “fuck it.” Kent mutters to himself. He pulls around and finds a spot in short term parking. Grabbing an Aces hat fom the dash he shoves it on his head immediately forgetting that he spent half an hour trying to make it look like it was effortlessly messy instead of just messy. 

When he gets to baggage claim he checks the flight status and sees that their plane has landed all ready so he finds a seat and waits. And then he starts bouncing his leg because he’s never been able to sit still in his life. Then he keeps checking the app over and over like it’s going to tell him when they got off the plane even though he knows it doesn’t. Then because he can’t sit still and because his anxiety seems insistent on being present for this reunine, his other leg starts bouncing too. Kent thinks maybe he should have just stayed in the car but that might have come off as rude and-

“Kent, are you okay?” A hand lands on his shoulder and Kent looks at it to see nicely manicured nails, and when he looks up at the face that belongs to the hand he sees Naomi’s face and her soft smile, and his legs stop bouncing as hard and fast as they were. 

“I’m uh… just excited you know… for you guys to get here?” 

Naomi sweeps a strand of curly blonde hair behind her ear and walks around to the other side of the seats that Kent is sitting in and draws him up off his feet and into a hug. Kent’s not super tall, and definitely not that tall for a hockey player, but Naomi has always been small. She’s 5’ 5” to Kents 5’ 10” and when she hugs him her head fits perfectly on his shoulder so he can bury his face into her hair. She uses the same shampoo their mom used to, it’s comforting. 

“Are you sure excitement is all it is? I know you don’t like big crowds, especially when it’s not for an Aces event. You could have stayed in the car you know.” 

“I didn’t want to be rude.” Kent mutters.

 

“Kent, it’s not rude if you need to get a breather or don’t want to put yourself in situations you don’t want to,” Naomi’s eyes flicker over to baggage claim and then back to Kent’s face, “are you sure you want us to stay with you? We can always find a different place.” 

Kent waves it off, “nah you’re fine. I’m alright, just getting nervous to actually see you guys, you know? Good nervous though, I promise.” 

“Okay good, cause here comes Jeff.” Kent turns and looks to where Naomi’s eyes are and he sees him. 

And Kent has seen him in Instagram photos and on Twitter for the past couple of years. But seeing someone in photos and seeing someone in the flesh is as different as… well Kent can’t think of the words right now but the point stands. Jeff is striding over to them somehow tugging three rolling suitcases behind him. Kent’s heart rate is picking up fast and he’s pretty sure his palms are getting sweaty. Jeff stops a few steps away from him and Nai and sets the rolling cases on their bottoms so they won’t topple over, and then he pulls Kent into a tight hug. 

And he says it so quietly, but with so much emotion, “I missed you.” 

Kent’s fucked.

 

* * * * * * * * * * 

The ride back to Kent’s place is quiet other than Naomi and Jeff talking about something they both remember from their college days that Kent wasn’t around for. He flexes his fingers on the steering wheel a couple of times just to have something to do while he listens to them talk about carving their names in bookshelves at a coffee shop or something, how they almost got caught. The only thing Kent’s name has ever been carved into is the Stanley Cup so he thinks he should be happy about that. 

“What about you, Kent?” Jeff is leaning up so closely between the front seats that it makes Kent jump. 

“What?” 

“What are you doing the rest of the summer before preseason stuff starts?” 

Kent can see Jeff’s wavy brown hair in the corner of his eye and he wants to reach out and push it behind his ear because he’s fucking hopeless, “just you,” he immediately realizes what he said, “you guys! Having you guys here! That’s what I’m doing.” 

They’re at a red light now so when Kent looks over to give Naomi and Jeff a smile he can see Naomi’s furrowed brow and Jeff’s grin. Then Naomi starts to snicker, and Jeff’s grin widens to show teeth and the three of them are outright laughing a few minutes later. Kent has stopped paying attention to the light and only realizes it’s gone green when the car behind them honks. It only causes the three of them to laugh more and Kent’s stomach hurts so much from laughing he think he might puke. 

“You two are the worst. This is why I moved out all the way to Nevada and left you on the east coast.” Kent says through his laughter. 

“Uh, actually I think you left us on the east coast because you became some hockey god when we both weren’t looking.” Naomi sighed dramatically. 

“That’s a lie, you both knew. I was a hockey god at like… 16.” 

“More like you were a pubescent awkward deer.” Jeff scoffed. 

“Excuse me, you’re only two years older than me?” 

“Yeah but those two years mean a lot,” Naomi snickers, “at 18 Jeff was in college doing college things and you were writing Mr. Claude Giroux all over your world history notes.” 

Kent’s face gets red in an instant, “I was not! I had an appreciation! He should have gone earlier than 22nd!” 

Jeff just keeps laughing and Naomi looks like a fish gasping for air out of water, “oh god, Kent!” she’s nearly yelling now, “how do you stand to play him now knowing you drew little hearts around his name!” 

“It doesn’t get to me because I didn’t draw hearts around his name!” 

“Oh no you definitely did.” Jeff says, head still situated right between their seats. 

“Yeah it was in an orange notebook and everything. You were almost a Flyers fan that whole year before you felt the sting of being a traitor to your state.” 

“I swear to god if I ever see anything on twitter or reddit about how I was the biggest Giroux fan or whatever bullshit I know where to find both of you.” 

Naomi is looking at him, head leaned back against the headrest of the seat. Kent can’t place the feeling she’s emitting but if he had to he might venture for proud. And then her sweet smile goes manic like it always does when she’s about to do or say something embarrassing. 

“Hey remember that one time you told me that England didn’t have any pla-” 

Kent reaches out a hand and tries to cover Naomi’s hand. That happened when he was like 8 and is pretty sure Jeff has never heard that one. He finally manages to get a hand over Naomi’s mouth, but she licks the palm of his hand. 

“Oh that’s disgusting Nai! What are we 12!?” 

“You two were doing that when you were 16.” Jeff intones from beside the two of them, “anyways I want to know what England doesn’t have?” 

“Oh look at that! We’re home! See look! My house! Everyone grab your shit and get out of my car.” Kent is tearing the key out of the ignition and out of the car before he can hear any more embarrassing stories Naomi is trying to tell that Jeff somehow missed out on. 

When he shuts his door he goes round to the back of the suv and opens the trunk, pulling out a couple of suitcases and a carry on that he straps across his chest. He grabs the two rolly cases that he saw Jeff with in the airport and grabs them. He’s taking off towards the house with them when he hears Jeff’s quiet voice from behind him. 

“He didn’t think England had planes? How did he think people got there?” 

“I don’t know boats I guess?” 

He’s not going to survive the next month. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Kent is pretty sure he is living in his own personal hell. Crushes (that’s a stupid fucking name for this but he doesn’t know what else to call it) are the actual worst and they don’t make sense to him. He’s spent the last 6 or so years only thinking about Jeff every now and then, wondering what he was up to. Now that he’s in his space though… all the time… the “crush” is back in full swing and he can’t calm himself down around him. And he knows Nai is noticing because she notices everything. 

It’s their fourth day there, Jeff has had to be in and out of the house so much that Kent just went and got a couple of keys made for him and Naomi. Giving it to Jeff though had been somewhat embarrassing. Even remembering Jeff’s confused face and head tilt and little “you’re giving me a house key? A key to your house?” Is making Kent groan and shove his face into his hands. 

“What’s bothering hockey god Kent Parson this morning?” Jeff asks. 

Kent startles from his seat at the island in his kitchen. He hadn’t even heard Jeff come into the room. He’s holding a coffee mug with coffee in it too, when did he turn the coffee pot on? Jeff is looking at him oddly and he’s not quite sure what the look on his face is trying to communicate. Kent realizes that he’s been staring at Jeff and hasn’t said a thing in at least a minute. The sound of a coffee mug scraping across the island jolts Kent out of his weird headspace. Jeff is looking at him pointedly. 

“You wanna talk about it?” He asks gently, like Kent is some kind of cornered animal. 

Kent is just now noticing how long Jeff’s eyelashes are, “uh yeah. I’m totally fine. I was just going to go to the practice rink and skate a little.” 

“Yeah? You mind if I ride with you?” 

Kent shoots him a confused look, “I mean you can come if you want to?”

“Yeah just let me grab my bag. There’s some emails I need to send out and I don’t like using my personal laptop for work and I left the other one at the arena in my office.” 

Kent’s hand freezes mid reach for the coffee mug that Jeff had slid over to him, “your… work?” 

Jeff is looking at him quizzically, “yeah? My work at the Aces offices? Are you sure you’re okay Kent?” Jeff reaches over the island and touches the back of his hand to Kent’s forehead. 

Kent jumps at the touch but doesn’t pull away since Jeff is retracting his hand already anyways, “nah I’m okay. Must have been tossing and turning all night… or something.” 

Jeff is looking at him like he knows some secret and it’s almost starting to piss Kent off. Jeff has been looking at him a lot lately, a lot even in the last twenty minutes and Kent feels like there’s a secret about himself that Jeff knows and he doesn’t. Jeff just smiles at him and disappears down the hallway most likely to get that bag he was talking about. 

Kent wishes he had like three hours to process what Jeff had just said, but it's less than a minute before Jeff is rounding the corner into the kitchen again with an attache slung over his shoulder. Kent picks up his duffle and the two of them silently make their way to his car. And then they silently pull out of the drive, and silently get halfway there. Kent thinks they might get to the rink without having to address his apparent idiocy but about three minutes out Jeff turns and looks at him. 

“You had no idea I was working in the Aces offices did you?” 

And Kent has absolutely no poker face so he decides to just take the L on this one, “nope.” he says, popping the p. 

“Nai didn’t tell you?” 

“She sure didn’t.” 

“I would say that doesn’t sound like her and I don’t understand why she wouldn’t tell you but-” 

“But Nai is the most dramatic person we have both met and it makes perfect sense that she didn’t tell me.”

Jeff is quiet for a moment while Kent finds a spot to park, when he turns the car off the two of them don’t move, “maybe she thought after how we left things last time we saw each other it would be best if I told you myself.” 

“How we left things?” Kent arches an eyebrow at Jeff, and even though he knows exactly what he’s talking about, he wants to hear what Jeff has to say about it before he opens his big fat mouth. 

“When we had a disagreement about the way you were… handling things.” 

“I think your exact words were something along the lines of ‘you’re becoming someone I don’t know, and frankly someone I don’t like and don’t care to know’’” Kent lowers his voice, trying to imitate Jeff’s.

And this is familiar to Kent. This entire situation. The bringing this out in the open to try and talk to them only to have them go to hell. He’s done this with Jack he thinks about six times in the last 8 years so he knows the drill pretty well by now. Next Jeff will say he was right, and Kent will get defensive because he doesn’t take criticism well (which is fucking ironic considering his chosen career path), and then the yelling will start and then one or both of them (absolutely Kent) will say something they don’t mean. So when Jeff opens his mouth to speak, and Kent tenses up getting ready for the blow out he’s stunned into silence by what he hears. 

“It wasn’t right of me to say that to you.” 

“It… what?” He feels like his mouth is gaping wide open, but he can’t move it enough to close it. 

“We’ve been best friends since elementary school and even if I thought you were changing I shouldn’t have just… I should have told you that I was worried about you, which I was, instead of just starting in like ‘oh hey I know we’ve been best friends forever but by the way I kind of hate you right now,’” Jeff pauses to maybe think about what he’s going to say next, Kent isn’t sure, “we were both going through it that summer and I didn’t make your shit any easier.” 

Kent watches Jeff as he looks down at the hands in his lap, wringing them together, a nervous tick that he’s had since they were kids. Kent reaches out and grabs his hands to stop the motion, and squeezes in a way he hopes is comforting. Jeff stops and looks at him with a tiny smile. For the first time since their stupid fight, and the first time since all the awkward anxiety inducing likes they left on each other’s social medias Kent feels like they’re their old selves again. 

“Well, I didn’t say anything particularly nice either so we’re both to blame for that one. For what it’s worth, you were right. About the me changing thing. I was a pretty big asshole to everyone that summer.” 

Jeff smiles at him and his eyes crinkle around the edges. Something about it makes Kent’s stomach flip and flop like crazy and his heart race like he just skated a full 60. Jeff squeezes his hand one more time before letting it drop. 

“I was wrong, you haven’t changed. You’re still a big fucking sap.” Jeff punches his shoulder playfully and Kent scoffs, shooting a hand out to mess up Jeff’s curly brown hair. 

“Hey knock it off asshole!” Jeff laughs putting his hands up to shield them from Kent’s wayward hands. 

“I have no idea what department you’re even in here, but I’m going to make it like my literal mission to make your life as hard as possible.” Kent laughs. 

“I have full faith that you’ll find that extremely easy.” Kent puts the mental image of the wide and toothy grin Jeff sends him away for later thought.

* * * * * * * * * * 

When he gets onto the ice Brownie is already there. He’s already there and he’s looking at him like Kent pushed one of the Little Aces over on purpose. Kent quirks an eyebrow at him but says nothing as he sits down by the bench door to lace up his skates. Brownie is skating over to him in an instant, fast, and snow showers him when he stops. 

“You’re a dick!” Kent laughs wiping snow off his face. 

“I heard from a little bird today that you were getting cozy with one of the new fan development directors.” 

“One of who?” 

Brownie sighs, “fan development? You know the people who tell us where to go to the photo ops and shove like 800 photos and pucks at us to sign?” 

Kent wrinkles his forehead, “you mean Kevin? I definitely wasn’t getting cozy with Kevin so I don’t know who told you that. Was it Carl? Because I swear to god if it was Carl I’m going to find him and sew every single jersey sleeve of his shut.” 

“Dude, Kevin left at the end of the season last year, how did you not know that?” 

Kent just shrugs, “I don’t know man. It was like every time I saw him he was shoving something in my face or asking me if I wanted to do golfing trips with old white guys I know I would hate just because they were season ticket holders. I told him I’d rather just give him the money for charity and if I had to go golfing with one more season ticket holder who said something snide about me coming out I was going to tweet that season ticket holders were terrible. I never saw him after that.” 

Brownie just looks at him, stunned, “jesus dude. You’re probably the reason he quit.”

Kent just shrugs, “so who told you I was getting cozy with whoever took his place?” 

“No one, I saw you sitting with him in your car like 15 minutes ago. I was coming in the same time you parked, but like, you two seemed like you were having some kind of deep conversa-” Brownie stops himself for a second, realization dawning on his face, “holy shit! Jeff, the dude you’re like totally hot for is the new Fan Development Director!” 

Kent whips his head around to make sure no one else is in the practice rink, “Brownie, shut the hell up!” Kent shushes him. 

“Sorry man I just… what are the fucking odds of that? You had no fucking clue until right now? Doesn’t he live at your house right now? How is that even possible? How are you like this?” 

Kent shrugs, “we never talked about it! He just always referred to it as the office!” 

Brownie laughs, “Naomi didn’t tell you? She knew he was moving out here for a job. You know what, I take that back. That’s exactly something Naomi wouldn’t tell you just for the drama of it.”  
Kent scoffs, “you’re telling me. Anyways it’s not a big deal. Jeff and I talked our shit out. We’re fine.”

“Wait was that some big romantic confession I saw happening? Oh man, please tell me it was some big romantic confession.” 

Kent finishes lacing up his skates and steps out on the ice, “it was definitely not a big romantic confession. Why are you so invested in my love life all of a sudden?” 

“Please, I am always 100% involved in your love life. Do you know how many of the guys’ cousins I have told them never to mention to you? I’ve been like a silent guardian of your love life forever. The hero you definitely don’t deserve right now.” 

“What are you talking about… actually you know what, I don’t want to know. And get that smile off of your face because Jeff and I are not getting together,” Brownie just smiles wider, “god you’re so weird stop. Your face looks like a carnival clown right now.” 

“That’s funny because you look like a carnival clown all the time. Literally I have never seen you not look like one, so.” 

Kent sticks out his stick and hooks it around his upper thigh, tugging and sending Brownie down to the ice, “what were you saying?” 

“Two minutes for hooking asshole!” Brownie gets up on his feet again and chases after Kent who had skated far ahead of him. 

“Nah, I call embellishment.” 

“I’m going to embellish your ass in a second.” Brownie mutters. 

The two of them skate laps quietly and slowly, warming up. Kent lets his mind drift back to his and Jeff’s talk earlier from the car and he smiles. It wasn’t like he and Jeff had stopped communicating (even if Naomi had told him a hundred times that liking each other’s tweets and IG photos didn’t count) and it wasn’t like their talk in the car was some huge enlightening and life changing moment but Kent felt like he was walking on air. Like he could breathe easy, like he and Jeff really could just pick up where they left off. 

When he looks up, Brownie is staring at him, the manic smile still plastered on his face. Kent bumps into him gently and laughs a quiet, “shut up.” but he feels the smile on his face spreading too. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

The days pass into weeks, and just as soon as Kent is getting used to seeing Jeff in his house every morning, in his low slung pajama pants, goofy smile on his face, he’s moving into his new place. Kent can’t lie, he’s sad to see him go. After their weird heart to heart in the car that morning things had been… well they’d been different. 

Jeff had been a lot more vocal even when Naomi wasn’t around them. He was sitting closer to Kent whenever they were on the couch. He was looking at him more, made prolonged eye contact all the time. The last two days he had started touching him more. A hand on his lower back when Jeff was trying to move past him, fingers brushed together whenever they passed anything from one to the other, he was ruffling his hair a lot more. It felt nice. It felt like a lot of other things that Brownie judged him for every single time he talked to him about it too. So yeah, Kent was a little sad to see Jeff leaving to go live in his own place not even ten minutes away. 

He was not however, sad to see Naomi go. Naomi who was sending smirks and eyebrow waggles every time she caught him and Jeff in some kind of friendly situation. Naomi was going to go stay at Jeff’s for a while to help him decorate and unpack and all of the good stuff now that he at least had a bed in the spare bedroom and Kent was a little thankful (and a little guilty about how happy he was) to see her go. 

So the summer was winding down and Kent had his place to himself and Kit again. Normally he would be excited about that. Having quiet time when Naomi was around is next to impossible, but Kent wouldn’t be lying if he said he missed it. It doesn’t matter now though, he’s got training camp starting within the hour to think about anyways. Kent grabs his duffle and swings it over his shoulder before he’s out of the door. 

 

* * * * * * * * * *

When he gets to the arena Brownie is waiting for him in their normal spot. He does a little jaunty wave at Kent and pushes off the wall to meet him, “so how’s it going with Jeff and Naomi out of the house? It’s been a few weeks right?” 

“Quiet.” 

“Is that… bad?” 

“It’s different. I don’t know I thought I was going to enjoy it and now I kind of… hate it?” 

“Hate it because it’s too quiet or hate it because there’s a certain someone who isn’t in your house anymore?” 

Kent reaches up and clamps a hand over Brownie’s mouth, “dude shut up! Do you know how many people on this team are lurk? We’re worst than high schoolers.” 

“Says the dude who hardly went to high school.” Kent and Brownie whip around to see one of their fellow lineys, Covy, coming around the corner. 

“I went to high school!” Kent yells, “and you’re just proving my point about lurking behind corners.” 

“It’s not my fault if I can hear you yelling all the way down the corridor. Your voice carries Kent.” Covy laughs.

“Yeah well your ponytail is stupid.” 

“What were we saying about high school?” Brownie snorts. 

“I’ll have you know that my ponytail is lucious and the talk of the town.” 

“You look less like Thor and more like Matt Damon when he had that man bun.”

Covy gasps, “I cannot believe you just compared me to someone who is from Boston. What’s wrong with you man, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?” 

Kent just shoves him, but it doesn’t have much effect since Covy is almost nine inches taller than he is. Covy just laughs at him, shoving his hat off of his head and pushing a hand in his hair and mussing it up. Kent whips his hand out to grab his hat from Covy’s other hand and shoves it back on his head. 

“You both are the worst you know that? Absolutely the worst.” 

Covy and Brownie both have their mouths open ready with some witty retort, Kent is sure, but the three of them are interrupted by the voice of their coach, “you three! Wanna keep standing around gossiping or would you like to get your asses on the damn ice!” 

Kent gives a salute, “you got it sir, three asses on the damn ice coming right up!” 

“Shut your mouth Parson and just do it.” Kent can see the eye roll from across the practice arena. 

Kent sends him a thumbs up and laughs at all the cajolling of teammates already on the ice waiting for the first day of training camp to start. Kent gets to the locker room, changes quickly into pads and jersey and makes his way back out to the ice in what he feels like is record time. Honestly, coach should be proud of him. When he makes his way out of the tunnel and to the practice ice every one is standing around looking towards the bench and Jeff is standing right behind it. When he sees Kent he gives him a smile and a wave before turning back to the rest of the team, some of which are giving Kent Looks.

Coach is the first one to speak, “as you all know, Kevin decided to move on to a different organization at the end of last season.” Kent can hear a few murmurs, a few jokes about chasing him out, and a confused ‘who the hell is Kevin’ before coach moves on, “the Aces organization has hired someone to fill his spot. Jeff Troy has already officially taken on the role of Fan Development Director. So if you have any complaints about golfing with season ticket holders,” he looks straight at Kent, “take it the fuck up with him and leave me alone.” 

Jeff gives the team a slight nod before taking over, “thanks for the rousing introduction. I’m Jeff Troy, like Coach Haskins said, I’ll be taking over Kevin’s position now that he’s moved on to a new organization-” 

“Yeah cause Kent chased him out by being a pain in the ass!” someone yells from the blob of players standing around, Kent’s pretty sure it’s Carl. 

Jeff gives whoever it is a pointed look, “I’m going to be conducting some short verbal surveys with a lot of you in the coming days to see where we all stand on fan involvement and fan engagement. Until then if you need me for anything, the Fan Development Director office remains in the same place so you can stop by any time.” 

He gives another nod as a closing to his speech and there’s a few scattered claps and some more light hearted heckling, but nothing to excited. When Jeff walks by Kent he stops, “you’re not going to give me the worst time with this are you?” 

“I definitely am.” Kent grins.

“I am definitely making you play every single game of golf I can.” 

Kent scrunches his nose, “you’re bluffing.” 

“I have never once bluffed anything in my life and you know it. Prepare. For. Golf.” 

“Hey everyone!” Kent cups his hand around his mouth to make sure he’s getting maximum volume, even though the arena echos pretty well. When he’s sure he’s gotten everyone’s attention he side eyes Jeff with a grin, “Troy has graciously volunteered his home for our preseason blow out cookout this year! And he’s got a banging pool so bring your swim trunks!” 

“Hell yeah!” Brownie yells, “this dude is already way better than Kevin.” 

Kent can hear Ritchie, one of the young guys who might actually play on the regular roster this year whisper to Brownie, “I still have no idea who the hell Kevin is.” 

Brownie laughs, “He was the dude who made us do stuff with and for fans, which all of us loved because we love our fans. Except Kent is an asshole who hates everyone and chased him out of town and made him hate this job so much that he took a job in the worst place you could ever think of.” 

“Ottawa?” Ritchie says with so much sincerity that it has Kent and Brownie both howling and Jeff shaking his head. 

“No, even worse, Portland.” 

Ritchie looks like he physically recoils, “he seriously went to go work for the Pipers? I feel like I’d rather be tortured by Parse all the time.” 

“Yeah well apparently some people are immune to my charms. I have no idea how that could be though. I’m perfectly charming all the time.” Kent grins at Jeff. 

“Yeah, charming enough to volunteer my house which is nowhere near the size as I’m sure some of yours are? Am I even going to be able to hold everyone who’s going to be coming?”

“I’m sure your house can fit all 200 of us right?” Brownie asks without a trace of any kind of kidding expression. 

“200 people? Kent you volunteered me for something that I have to host for 200 people!?” 

Kent is too busy laughing, doubled over, to respond. When he finally lets his laughs die down and he’s wiping at the tears collecting in the corner of his eye he speaks, “dude Brownie was just messing with you. It’s like… 60 maybe 75 tops. Like all the current roster dudes, some of the rookies who are brave enough to actually show up. Some SOAPs and kids will be there too.” 

“Everything is very lowkey, I promise. Almost no one has gotten hurt at one of these things.” Brownie includes for good measure. 

“What do you mean almost no one-” 

“Browning, Parson, Highmore! Are the three of you going to stand around trying to get out of puck signing duty or are you actually going to come join the rest of your damn team and do skate tests?” Coach yells at them from down the ice where everyone else is currently gathered. 

“Oh look at that,” Kent says, “we have to go. Have fun. Text me later if you need help party planning!” 

The three of them are off skating towards the opposite end of the rink where everyone is gathered when Brownie leans in towards Kent with a whisper, “Text me later if you need any help party planning? Like you weren’t going to be over there as soon as camp was over today to help him pick out everything.” 

“How “in love” with him do you think I am? Which I’m not by the way, just wondering how deluded you are.” 

“I know you’re in love with him, not think. Besides we both know that that party is literally you’re baby every year and there is no way you aren’t going to be involved in planning it to some degree. I know you did this on purpose.” 

“Are the two of you going to stop gossiping? When did we turn into a middle school instead of a professional fucking hockey team?” 

“You’ve got every once of my attention now sir, sorry about that.” 

“Parson you have never been sorry about a single thing in your life.” Coach sighs and sounds resigned about it. 

“Sir, I have to say it is remarkable how right you are all the time.” Kent grins.

“The day I retire from this team I’m going to the most expensive restaurant with my entire extended family and footing you with the bill.” 

“Wouldn’t expect anything else sir!” 

“Just get in the middle of the damn circle and lead stretches Parson.” 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Kent would never want to admit it to Brownie, but he’s half right. This party is his baby. He’s thrown it every year since the second year he was on the team when he was saddled with the responsibility as a half prank half the vets didn’t want to do it anymore. And he’s taken pride in his ability to throw a banger, okay? The music is always amazing, varied for everyone’s taste but nothing out there enough that people ever yell at him to pick better music, he always gets catering from the best place in Vegas that does these amazing sliders, drinks are plentiful and always around, and he makes sure everyone is having a good time, SOAPs too. So yeah he’s a little sad that he’s not technically hosting this year, but he definitely didn’t hoist it onto Jeff as anything but a joke contrary to what Brownie keeps suggesting. 

So when he finds himself outside of Jeff’s new Vegas house at 7pm that night with a bag full of party resources it’s not because this was an excuse to spend more time with Jeff. Kent rings the doorbell and it’s only a heartbeat before Jeff opens the door looking frazzled. 

“Thank God you’re here,” and that does something to Kent’s chest, “I have been looking at caterer’s all afternoon and I have no clue who the hell to book and it’s such short notice anyways and Kent you need to fix this since you were the one who volunteered me for it anyways.” 

Kent smiles at him, and he knows it looks fond and affectionate but he can’t help it, “okay first of all, you don’t have to cater this thing if you don’t want to. No one would care if there was fancy catered food or just pounds upon pounds of brats and burgers. But, Tessa does block out this specific weekend every year for us, so you’re good.” 

Jeff gives him the flattest expression he can muster, “Are you telling me I’ve been freaking out all afternoon for no reason?” 

“Pretty much, yeah. Listen I know springing this on you wasn’t exactly the nicest thing to do but… I don’t know, you don’t know anyone in Vegas except for me. The rest of the communications people are old enough to be your parents. I thought it would be nice for you to host so you could make friends with the team instead.” 

Jeff regards Kent with a suspicious look at first, but it slowly morphs into something more appreciative, “while your methods were fucking terrible, I suppose the reason behind it was noble enough. But next time I’m going to somehow loosen your skate blades so that everyone watches you fall flat on your face during your next practice.” 

Kent laughs, “yeah okay, fair enough.” 

Jeff notices the bag for the first time, “what’s in there?” 

“Just the most amazing party planning binder you will ever set your eyes on.” 

Jeff scoffs and motions for Kent to follow him into the dining room where he has a legal pad and his laptop set up on the table, “you take this pretty seriously don’t you?”  
“It took me a long time to make friends on the team. Every year I hosted the part I always got claps on the back and compliments about how nice it was so I don’t know,” Kent shrugs his shoulders, “I made sure that I got the same compliments every time.” 

“Kent I want you to know that I mean this in the best possible way, but that’s really sad.” 

“Yeah yeah, whatever. Now are we going to get to party planning or what? Because I have a couple suggestions about what to have Tessa make this year. Plus I’m going to put an order in for booze.”

“Kent,” Jeff reaches out and puts a hand on his arm where it’s laying on the table, close to his elbow, “I’m serious. I want… I want to apologize for… for making you feel like you couldn’t come to me or talk to me when you moved to Vegas. I hate knowing that I was one of those people who left you on your own out here.” 

The air in the room is awkward. The kind that happens when people are having serious and emotional conversations that only one of them wants to have. Kent can feel the itchiness in his throat that he always gets before he tears up starting. He clears it away with a disguised cough. He doesn’t have much experience in heart to heart conversations. It seems like all the ones he tries to have always morph into shouting matches, so he’s stopped trying. But Jeff… something about Jeff makes him want to try to have those conversations more often. 

“I promise you didn’t leave me stranded out here Jeff. Maybe I was always… I don’t know bitter about the fact that you thought I had changed enough that you didn’t want to be part of my life anymore but… I was sort of an asshole back then, you weren’t completely wrong. I… I want you to know that…” Kent takes a deep breath, and then chickens out, “you’re a really good friend, and the way you’re here for me now is enough. So thanks.” 

Jeff looks at him like he has somehow read his mind and knows that there was more to what Kent wanted to say than he actually did, but he just smiles, squeezes Kent’s arm and let’s it go, “that’s nice to hear. Thank you. Alright let’s get party planning, I see this binder has an entire tab on music.” 

Kent is thankful for the bailout, “oh yeah dude, that’s like the most important part.” 

* * * * * * * * * * 

The next couple of days blur together in between all the development camp practices, scrimmages, physical tests and Kent spending hours every night at Jeff’s helping him get ready for the party. By the time the weekend rolls around and they all finally have their first day free from any camp stuff, the party is also arriving, and with it, Kent’s internal panic. 

“How long does it take you to find something to wear to a casual party?” Naomi is sitting on the ottoman Kent has in the center of his walk in closet watching him throw garments off of hangers and out of drawers in a tizzy. 

“I’m not dignifying that with an answer.” 

“You’re not dignified at all so I wouldn’t worry. Listen, Jeff is going to think your butt looks nice in anything you wear anyways so just pick something!” 

Kent freezes, “what are you… I mean why would you even… what possessed you to say that?” 

“Because I know that’s why you’re freaking out right now? Listen if you try to hard for something that’s supposed to be casual you’re going to look like you did exactly that, try too hard. Now sit down.” 

Kent does as he’s told, but only because he’s tired of looking through every single article of clothing he owns and not because he knows arguing with Naomi would back him into a corner of stupidly admitting that she’s right. He watches her peruse through his clothes and before too long she’s pulled out two things. A pair of tight jeans that are ripped in the knees and one of Kent’s nicer white linen button ups. She hands them both to him and then starts rifling through his shoes. Before long she’s pulled out a pair of white slip on loafers. She’s throwing them at him and immediately after looking through his watch drawer. 

“Excuse you those are Gucci! You can’t just throw them at me!” 

“What are they going to do scuff from hitting your stupid face?” Naomi asks without bothering to turn around. 

“You’re the worst sister I’ve ever had.” 

“First of all I’m the only sister you’ve ever had and secondly I am definitely the best sister anyone can have, hands down. Thirdly, you sound like a stuck up snob so shhh. Fourthly,” she says turning around, a gleaming silver watch in her hand, “I’ve just put you in jeans that’ll definitely make hockey butts trend on twitter and a shirt that says ‘I’m responsible and an adult, please date me’ so be nice to me.” She drops the watch in Kent’s hand before leaving the closet, “hurry up and get dressed so we can leave please!” 

By the time Kent has left his closet and gotten downstairs, Naomi is sitting by the front door, foot tapping impatiently. When she sees him walking up she beams, “look at my handiwork! See you look great! That shirt is like half a size too small for you too so it makes your shoulders look broader.” 

“You remember how you were trying to say that you were the best sister ever?” 

“I’m proving it?” 

“I wish I could say you weren’t but… maybe you’re on the right track.” 

Naomi smiles, “I love it when you admit I’m right. Now, chop chop, we have to help Jeff set up!” Naomi grabs Kent’s keys out of the glass bowl sitting by his front door and the two of them are buckled in and making the twenty minute drive to Jeff’s place. 

The ride is silent, which is unusual for both Naomi and Kent. Usually the case is that one of them can’t stop talking, and when they do, the other one picks up where they left off. The silence isn’t tense, but every time Kent catches a peek at Naomi from the passenger’s seat she’s side eyeing him too. He can tell she wants to ask something and she’s taking her sweet time to figure out how to ask in a way that won’t come off wrong. 

“Jesus Nai, just ask whatever it is you want to know so you can stop being weird.” 

“I wasn’t being weird! Some of us try to think through our words before we say them, Kent.” 

“Hey! I think! Most of the time!” 

“Yeah well… this isn’t something I think you’re really dying to have a conversation with me about so…” 

“That has absolutely 100% never stopped you before.” 

“I’m trying this new thing called not inserting myself into every aspect of my little brother’s life.” 

“Yeah? How’s that going?” 

“I have to tell you, it’s not going great.” Naomie side eyes him again before coming to a stop at the red light they’re currently at. 

“Then just spit it out.” 

Kent is expecting her to at least say whatever it is she wants to say with some tact, because she had just spent the first full 8 minutes of their drive thinking about it. Instead what she says is, “I really think you should tell Jeff that you like him. Tonight. Like at the party. Preferably when we get there.” 

Kent snorts, “oh yeah that’ll go over well. Hey Jeff! We’re here to help you set up for this party I volunteered you for. Oh did you know I’ve had a big ol’ gay crush on you since I was like 10? No? Well it’s still going strong! Hey you need any help setting those Hors d’oeuvres out before all of the teammates who may be judging you get here?” 

Naomi levels him with a look that could probably freeze lava, “your teammates are not going to judge him that hard. How can they judge him when they all act like a bunch of over hyped frat boys.” 

“I didn’t mean judge him personally I meant… listen, I have finally found a group of guys who care about who I date and like… in a ‘we don’t want you with an asshole’ way.” 

“Kent, that sounds like the opposite of a bad thing.” 

“Yeah but you’re not the one on the receiving end of the shovel talk from a handful of professional hockey players.” 

“If I’m being honest, I feel like that’s an experience I want to have.” 

“You’re not helping.” 

“Kent, is that honestly the only thing you’re worried about? What everyone else’s reactions are going to be?” 

“I…” Kent pauses and he hopes Naomi can’t tell that he wanted to say more, “yes?” 

“Kenny come on. What is it?” 

“You keep telling me to tell him and you keep sending me these looks every time we’re all together and he brushes his hand on my elbow or touches my back. But… what if he’s just being friendly. What if this is what we’re like as adults and friends? We’ve never been friends out of being teenagers.” 

“Kent I need you to think about all of your other friends. Does Brownie leave his hand on your lower back for no reason? Does Brownie brush his fingers over yours when grabbing kitchen utensils even though he clearly had enough room to grab the tongs by the handle without touching your hand? Does Brownie press his leg against yours when the two of you are sitting on the couch?” She takes a deep breath, “even though there is plenty of room on either side of you and the middle of that couch is so damn uncomfortable so it makes no sense to want to sit there anyways.” 

Kent’s brows furrow together, pinching at the bridge of his nose, “are you okay?” 

“Kent, I am the furthest from okay I am ever going to get. You and Jeff have been friends since before like… those xlerator hand dryers have been around.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“Ah ah ah! I’m not done! My point is, you and Jeff have been friends since the stone age. The two of you have gone through some of the worst ups and downs. And yes, you had a falling out, and yes you didn’t speak for a while but Kent… when the two of you actually did sit down and talk?” 

“It was… it was scary but it was… it was the first time I’d ever talked about feelings without wanting to runaway.” 

“That’s my point Kent. You and Jeff? Once you got over the initial miscommunication? And the two of you have always been like that before too. Remember when you were like 15 and Jeff was going away for the summer and he didn’t tell you?” 

“Yeah he said he’d wanted me to focus on summer training instead of worrying about him getting eaten by a bear in Montana.” 

“Yes, but he didn’t tell you that. The two of you almost had that fight, and what happened instead?” 

“I told him I thought he was leaving for the summer without telling me because he was mad at me and then he told me he hadn’t meant for it to come off that way and he should have told me and then I said something about how I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.” 

“Kent when have you ever communicated with someone that well? Including myself? I’m not saying the two of you are perfect by any means but I just… you’re so worried about messing everything up and getting into fights because that’s how your last relationship ended and it ended badly. But issues that lead to one relationship failing, aren’t going to be an issue for every relationship moving forward and you’re letting yourself pine away like some Austen period drama because of it.” 

“I am not pining away.”

“Kent, normally I’m the one telling you not to rush into things. You tell yourself that a lot too. I just think this time… with how long the two of you have known each other maybe… maybe it’s not such a bad idea to at least let each other know how you feel? I’m not saying you have to get married or move in together tomorrow.” 

“I’ll think about it…” 

“Well you better think fast because we’re here.” Naomi says, pulling into Jeff’s drive way. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

“Okay so I’ve got those slider and kebob things you told me were a big hit over there, like an entire bar set up outside, I cleaned and then recleaned the pool, and I have an entire fridge stocked with gatorade, water, and pop for people who don’t want to drink. The playlist you shared with me is on queue and ready to go…” Jeff is turning and looking over every single inch of his house like he drank too much caffeine. 

“Jeff I told you, as long as there’s beer and food and a pool for them to make a fool of themselves playing chicken you literally cannot mess it up.” 

“I’m not worried about them being bored Kent. I know how hockey dudes work.” 

Kent sighs, moving to sit down at one of the island chairs, “you’re worried about something though?” 

“I…” Jeff looks down at his hands, he’s picking at the side of his nails nervously, trying not to make eye contact with Kent. 

Which is new for him. Kent is normally the one trying to avoid eye contact when he doesn’t want to talk about something that’s bothering him. Lately he feels like he’s gotten better and better and expressing his emotions (he’s still a long shot away from a “normal” baseline or whatever, but hey progress is progress) and he’s starting to see his own diversion tactics in other people now. He wonders if this is what other people saw all the time, someone who was too hesitant (or scared on his part) to share, or if he actually got away with the suave, ‘nothing bothers me’ act. 

“I just want to… make a good first impression.” Jeff’s voice draws Kent out of his thoughts. 

“And like I told you, there is literally no way they aren’t going to like you. Why is it so important to make a good first impression? Listen, most of these guys, even if they hate you? They’re not going to make your life a living hell.” 

“You did. For the last guy.” 

“Yeah, well I am a special brand of asshole. But I have a feeling it’s not about the job?” 

Jeff looks at him, almost startled, “why do you say that?” 

“Because you wouldn’t be worrying so much. I’ve seen you around the last couple of weeks and you give off a very professional, stay out of my way I know what I’m doing, vibe. Someone who’s as confident and clearly competent at their job isn’t going to care what a bunch of overhyped frat boys think.” 

“You think I’m good at my job?” 

“Yes, but stop trying to deflect. Come on, tell me. What am I going to do judge you? Jeff, you were there for like almost every single bad teenage decision I made.” 

Jeff gives him the look that Brownie had started to calling “adoring” and gave Kent hives for some reason. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it when Jeff looked at him like that, it was a nice look, it just… he didn’t know what to make of it. Kent raises his eyebrows at Jeff, indicating that he’s waiting, and no amount of redirect is going to derail the conversation. 

“They’re your friends.” 

“They are.” 

“They’re your friends and I want them to like me.” 

“You want my friends to like you because… you’re also my friend…?” 

Jeff lets out a breathy laugh, “something like that. I… I want your friends to like me Kent because I want to be here for a long time, and I want to… I want to spend more time with you?” 

“I’m confused is that a question?” 

Jeff barrels through Kent’s comment, “I want to spend more time with you. A lot… and sometimes it’s difficult to… spend time with someone when their friends don’t like you.” 

“Even if they didn’t end up liking you, which they will, we could always hang out away from them.” 

“Yes but it makes this very specific type of time spending difficult if the other people in your life, who’s opinions and thoughts you trust and take into consideration, don’t like me. If you catch my drift.” 

Kent can say this is honestly one of the first times he’s been genuinely confused about something. Jeff looks shifty, like any moment he’s just going to vibrate out of his skin and Kent doesn’t know what about this whole thing is making him so nervous. He really really doesn’t catch Jeff’s drift. He’s about to ask him to reiterate when the bell rings and the two of them are startled out of their thoughts. 

“I’ll… I’ll go get it.” Kent volunteers. 

“Yeah uh… go ahead. Thanks.” Kent is about to leave the kitchen when he sees Naomi coming in the kitchen, an expression on her face that he can’t discern. When he does leave, he hears Naomi hiss ‘specific time spending, really?’ quietly behind him. 

He wants to stop and ask Naomi what the hell she’s going on about, but the doorbell rings four more times in rapid succession. He’ll have to put interrogating Naomi on hold for a few moments longer. When he reaches the door and throws it open, Brownie, Ritchie, and Covy are on the other side of the door. 

Ritchie elbows Brownie in the side, “I told you we were going to be the first ones here.” 

Covy laughs, “this isn’t college anymore Ritchie, you want to be the first one here for these parties.” 

“Why?” Ritchie wrinkles his brows, like he can’t imagine showing up anywhere early. 

“Because,” Brownie says brushing past Kent (ruffling his hand in hair on his way) as the three of them enter the house, “if you don’t get here first than all the good food is going to be taken and you’ll starve.” 

“Yeah dude, just wait. Party is supposed to start in about 15 minutes, everyone else will be here in 10.” Covy pushes Ritchie gently out of the front hallway in search for the kitchen. 

When the two of them are out of the front foyer, Brownie turns to Kent, “so how’d party planning go?” 

“Good… it was… good.” 

Brownie checks over his shoulder to make sure no one is behind them and then opens the door again and pushes Kent gently out of it, closing it firmly behind him, “okay spill. Because that weird little high pitched good you just did? It’s weird. And I’ve never heard you do it before so tell me. Did something happen? Did you and Jeff…” Brownie twirls his hands around in a confused gesture. 

“I have no idea what this,” Kent moves his hands around like Brownie did, “means. What are you talking about?” 

“I don’t know man! Party planning late at night, just the two of you, it sounds… I don’t know, romantic?” 

“Yeah because getting into arguments about whether we should order crab cakes or shrimp puffs is the height of romance.” 

“Maybe not for most people, but for you? That sounds about right.” 

Kent playfully shoves at Brownie and before he knows it Brownie has an arm around his neck and the two of them are in the most juvenile half shoving half wrestling match ever. Their about to shove each other off the steps and into the little rock garden thing Jeff has got going on out front but the honking of a car horn snaps them out of it. 

“Maybe you want to let go of our star player before you accidentally break his leg?” Kent looks up at the sound of the voice and sees a handful of the team coming up the drive. Jojo’s wife Hannah is standing in front of them, a tray of deviled eggs in her hands. 

“That’s not fair Hannah, you know I have to give him hell at least 25 times a day. It was stipulated in his contract. We can’t let his ego get too big.” Brownie laughs.

“I don’t know Harrison, I think he almost had you before Hannah interrupted the two of you.” 

Jojo is coming up the drive along with Andrej, their backup goalie, and his girlfriend Amalia. Behind them are Val their regular starter and his wife Tanya, and Martin a centre on the third line and his girlfriend Jackie. The seven of them are all carrying trays of varying foods, and Kent zeros in on the tray Amalia is carrying. 

“Amalia. Sweet, wonderful, beautiful Amalia. What’s that on your tray and did you make them for me?” 

Amalia laughs, “Kent, all you have to do is ask and you’ll have an entire tray of appelflappen to yourself.” Amalia leans in and kisses Kent’s cheek gently. 

“Amalia I want you to know, you are way too good for Andrej and you should dump him immediately and run away with me.” 

“I think I would break a few hearts if I took you off the market. Better to keep myself safe and avoid that one.” The two of them laugh, and Kent takes the tray from Amalia and leads her inside. 

“Dude doesn’t that ever get weird?” Brownie asks, as the rest of them follow Amalia and Kent into the house and back into the kitchen. 

“Does what get weird?” Jeff asks from around the island where he, Covy, Ritchie, and Naomi look to be through their second mimosa each.  
“Kent and Amalia’s love affair.” 

Jeff smiles, “I’m assuming one of you lovely ladies has to be Amalia?” 

“Guilty as charged,” Amalia sticks her hand out for Jeff to shake, “I hear you’re the man who’s going to have Andrej missing dates to go golfing with old men this year?” 

“Why is it always golfing?” Ritchie mutters from beside them, “why don’t they like any other sport?” 

Kent snorts, “it’s a curse. You just have to get used to it.” 

Jeff ignores the two of them, “I am, unfortunately. I hope you can forgive me for it. I hear you’re the person who’s stealing my b-,” Jeff trips over his words for a second, “stealing Kent away from Vegas?” Amalia looks at him like she just found out something exciting.

Amalia laughs, “he keeps asking and I keep declining. He’s a heartbreaker though, isn’t he?” Amalia gives Jeff a strange look that Kent can’t quite place. 

“Uh yeah… that’s what I keep hearing.” 

“He’s a terrible flirt, but harmless.” Jackie laughs from beside Martin, “you should have seen him the first time he met any of us. A bumbling mess. Like a little baby deer. It was adorable.” 

“I can’t help it! I was 18 and you all were six feet tall and beautiful!” 

“Were?” Hannah asks. 

“Are! You are! Anyways, that’s enough of the embarrassing story time. I think we have some meats to grill and you all have a pool to jump in.” Kent ushers everyone standing around outside to where the pool is ready and the open bar is set up for consumption. 

The only three left in the kitchen are Kent, Brownie, and Jeff, Naomi having followed Amalia and the other SOAPs outside all of them close and whispering about something. Kent finds a seat at the island next to Brownie and grabs Naomi’s left mimosa and downs the rest of the flute in one gulp. 

“They all seem nice?” Jeff asks. 

“They are. But they’re also terrible gossip mongers. Every single one of them. Especially Andrej, don’t let the sweet smile and Polish accent trick you.” 

Brownie rolls his eyes, “Kent is just mad because someone Andrej and Amalia are around every single time something embarrassing happens to him so they have the most cannon fodder when it comes to terrible stories.” 

“First of all,” Kent starts, “the Dallas thing was not my fault and we all know it.”

“Secondly?” Jeff asks, refilling his and Kent’s flutes with more mimosa. 

“There is no second,” Brownie says, “literally every other story is legitimately Kent’s fault.” 

“I’m serious, you can’t talk to either of them. The three of you put together would be terrible. Especially if Naomi is there. I’m going to be the butt of every joke for years.” 

“Can’t be worse than the time your butt was actually the joke in Dallas!” Brownie yells, grabbing his mimosa and making a beeline for outside before Kent can throw something at him.

“Can’t say I’m not curious about that one. Maybe I’ll have to go find Amalia and Andrej and ask about it.” 

“God, please don’t. It was honestly one of the worst things to happen to me that somehow never got spread around.” 

Brownie snorts, “just wait. Amalia will probably spill the beans to you before the night’s over. Andrej will spill the beans if you so much as say the word Dallas.” He stands up and heads towards the patio door, “I’m going to go eat my weight in crab cakes now. You two have fun.” 

Kent and Jeff watch Brownie’s back as he heads out the sliding glass doors and into the backyard with everyone else. When the doors close behind him and he’s far away enough that he probably can’t hear anything either of them say through the glass doors they turn to each other. 

“About spending time together-” 

“I think we need to talk-” 

The two of them stop and Jeff lets out a breathy laugh. The sound of it sort of takes Kent’s own breath away. The room is quiet around them but Kent can hear laughter and shouting coming from the backyard every couple of seconds. The two of them shuffle and putter around each other for a few more moments before Jeff speaks up again. 

“I wanted to… I know I said something weird about spending time together earlier?” 

“It was a little weird.” Kent flashes a smile at Jeff, the one he knows makes people swoon at the big donation events the Aces hold once or twice a year. 

“I know but uh… listen. I meant it. I want to spend more time with you Kent. I know we have a lot of time to makeup for, when we weren’t really talking to each other but… I want to spend more than just time with you.” 

“What else do you want to spend with me?” Kent asks slowly. 

“I want to spend weekend trips to Cali and I want to spend christmas’ with you at Naomi’s place. I want to spend money on buying you stupid things I know you could afford but that reminded me of you and maybe flowers every now and then because I remember how you looked at the girls getting carnations in school on Valentine’s Day.”

“I did not look a-” Kent starts to protest that he wasn’t some closet romantic but Jeff pushes through.

“I want to spend the night at your house trying not to suffocate when Kit lays on my face. I want to spend time holding your hand and listening to you complain about officiating in games. I want to spend time kissing you and holding you when you get stressed. I just… I want to spend whatever time I have with you.”

“You don’t ask for much do you?” Kent whispers. 

The two of them are still on opposite sides of the kitchen island and Kent feels like he has never been separated from someone by so much distance before. He takes a few strides so he’s standing on the same side as Jeff. Jeff is looking down at the ground again, worrying his lip. Kent can feel his heart pounding in his chest, he can hear it thrumming, like that pulsating you get in your ears when your heart is going a million miles a minute. 

“I know it’s a lot… and I know with our jobs it won’t be easy, everyone might think I’m showing you favoritism. But I know that I really want this Kent. I want to try.” 

Kent walks the three paces it takes to get to Jeff and grabs his hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over the knuckles of Jeff’s hands, “do you know how long I’ve had a crush on you?” 

“What?” 

“Seriously when I was like 7 and we were all running barefoot by the river that one summer and I stepped on a sharp rock? You picked me up and piggy backed me all the way home.” 

“You were bleeding.”  
“Yeah but… you were always doing stuff like that for me. You were Naomi’s friend but you always involved me in stuff, you always made sure I felt like I was welcome and…” Kent trails off trying to find the best words.

“And?” 

“And I would literally go golfing with 100 old white men who kiss my ass in person but criticize me online for you.” 

Jeff’s smile is so beautiful that Kent honestly thinks his heart skips a beat. He can’t help but to let his own face light up in a smile. Jeff takes one of his hands out of Kent’s and brushes a strand of blond hair behind his ear. He leans down touching his forehead to Kent’s gently, closing his eyes. Taking in the moment or something, Kent doesn’t know, but he enjoys the contact anyways. 

“Can I kiss you?” Jeff asks quietly. 

Kent answers him by pressing up on his tiptoes and pressing his lips to Jeff’s. Jeff’s hand cups the back of Kent’s head, fingers tangling in his hair, not pushing him forward but holding him softly. As far as first kisses went, it was probably the most chaste Kent had ever had. There wasn’t any frenzied aspect to it, no hurriedness or fear of getting caught. It was sweet, something Kent hadn’t had a lot of in his life. 

“Does this mean Kent gets out of golfing with all the season ticket holders?” 

Kent and Jeff break apart and turn to look behind them. Brownie is leaning up against the kitchen counter, stuffing a crab cake in his mouth, two more stacked in his hand. He’s smiling at the two of them. Kent picks up a lime from the fruit basket on the kitchen island and throws it at Brownie. 

“Dude! You almost made me drop my crab cake!” Brownie quickly shoves part of another crab cake in his mouth before he has a chance to drop any of them, “but the questions stands, does Kent get out of golfing duty now that the two of you are a thing?” 

Kent smiles at Brownie and then turns it on Jeff, “nah,” he says leaning up and kissing Jeff again, “I think I can handle a game or two.”


End file.
